Back in the mid-2000s I became a big fan of Glenn Greenwald’s writing regarding the malfeasance of the Bush Administration, and I stayed a fan when he wrote scathing criticism of the Obama Administration. What I liked about Greenwald was that he was fearless in pursuing accountability for those in power in an era where the powerful both in government and outside it have acted with impunity. It’s also why I liked other muckrakers like Matt Taibbi and Matt Stoller. They seemed to be genuinely motivated by holding the feet of the powerful to the fire regardless of party or ideological affiliation.
But the reaction of these personalities and others on the left of the left to the numerous documented acts of malfeasance and potential criminality on the part of the Trump Administration has destroyed their credibility in my eyes.
Again, these guys made their reputations on the notion that the powerful regardless of party should be held accountable. Yet their response to the Mueller investigation and now the findings of the Mueller Report has been to ignore the findings of potential obstruction of justice and instead focus on attacking media partisans who’ve been obsessing over Russiagate.
The skepticism that Greenwald, et al. voiced about reports of ties between Russia, Trump, and WikiLeaks and their silence/skepticism about reports of potential obstruction by the Trump Administration was at least excusable prior to the release of the Mueller Report. I could buy that they perhaps wanted to wait until the report was out before jumping to any conclusions, especially considering how some of the reports that came out about those topics turned out to be flawed.
But where their credibility really began to come apart was when the Barr summary of the Mueller Report was released a few weeks ago. I agreed that the lack of any indictments against Don, Jr. or Kushner or even Jerome Corsi showed how badly some on our side overhyped the report and I said so at the time. But Greenwald, et al., went much further than that, essentially doing victory laps and claiming the entire investigation was a big nothingburger. I found that extremely irresponsible since the actual report itself hadn’t even been released yet.
Furthermore, I found it incredibly offputting that Greenwald, et al., were so willing to believe the interpretation of the report by a government official as the final word without having seen the report itself, especially considering that official, William Barr, also participated in the cover up of the Iran-Contra scandal. These are guys who refused to trust anything out of the Bush and Obama Administrations, yet here they were uncritically taking the word of an official who had a history of covering up scandals, and who worked for what is objectively the most dishonest administration and President in our history.
Then of course the actual Mueller Report was released yesterday, with all of its damning details. While Mueller recommended no further indictments, the details the report laid out were stunning. The report confirmed that WikiLeaks had indeed received the stolen emails from Russian intelligence. It confirmed that virtually all of the serious reporting by the NY Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal regarding Trump, Russia, and Trump’s attempts to obstruct the Mueller investigation were correct.
Most importantly, on the two main areas of the investigation — the Trump campaign’s ties with Russian intelligence, and Trump’s attempted obstruction of justice — the report was definitely a somethingburger.
Yes, with regard to whether Trump and company conspired with Russia, Mueller ultimately concluded that what they did didn’t meet the high bar for conspiracy. But Mueller also made clear that there were over 140 contacts between Trump campaign folks and Russian figures, that people in the campaign did know that Russia had hacked the DNC’s emails, that they did communicate with WikiLeaks repeatedly about releasing the emails, and so on and so on. Not to mention, the report even stated that investigators probably didn’t get the entire picture because Trump campaign officials destroyed evidence and repeatedly lied to the investigators.
But while Russia skeptics can dismiss all of that as having taken place before Trump was president, at a time when he had no power, they cannot say the same about the instances of potential obstruction. Mueller lays out in excruciating detail the numerous instances where Trump attempted to obstruct justice, only to be saved by aides who ignored his orders. And most damning of all, Mueller says explicitly that Trump is not at all exonerated for potential obstruction of justice:
Again, this all happened while Trump was the most powerful man in the world. Here we had a clear case of people at the highest levels of power brazenly attempting to break the law, and we have an official, exhaustive report confirming it — it wasn’t just some anonymously sourced report in Buzzfeed or from a Seth Abramson tweetstorm. This was Mueller himself confirming it. This was precisely the kind of abuse of power by the most powerful people in government that people like Greenwald and Taibbi and others have railed against in the past and have forcefully demanded accountability for.
Yet their collective response to this information has been...crickets.
Instead Greenwald and fellow Russia skeptics have continued to harp on the same reports that turned out to be false (Cohen in Prague, Manafort meeting with Assange) that they already took a victory lap on when Barr’s summary came out. Meanwhile on the finding that WikiLeaks got intelligence from Russia, which Greenwald in particular has voiced skepticism about, they have all been silent.
Their silence is all the more disturbing when you consider that many of their followers jumped all over the Seth Rich conspiracy theory that Rich provided WikiLeaks with the emails and that Clinton had Rich murdered over it, which is now clearly false given that WikiLeaks got the emails from Russia and not from Rich. And yet even more disturbing is the fact that WikiLeaks pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy theory knowing it was bullshit. But on all of that, Greenwald and company are completely silent.
But perhaps the most shameless behavior on the part of Greenwald, et al., has been their attacks on Democratic leadership’s reluctance to pursue impeachment. Not that I disagree that our Democratic leadership’s behavior in the wake of the report has been pathetic and spineless, and sadly all too predictable. It is very much the kind of behavior that has given us this era of the rich and powerful avoiding accountability for their misdeeds.
Yet why is it that Greenwald, et al., are outraged by Democratic leadership’s reluctance to impeach, yet they can’t be bothered to voice any outrage about the actual impeachable offenses committed by the most powerful man in the world and his administration?
Earlier today I brought this up to Matt Stoller, who after total silence on the Mueller investigation suddenly spoke up to excoriate Democratic leadership for this. When I pointed this very thing out to Stoller, that it was odd he was more outraged about Democratic leadership’s refusal to impeach than about the impeachable acts themselves, he responded:
Greenwald and others have responded with very much the same kind of sentiment, and to that I can only point out what a massive cop-out this is. Every day Greenwald, Stoller, and others voice outrage about things they have no power to do anything about but that doesn’t stop them from doing so. But all of a sudden, they say they’re silent on Trump’s potential crimes because they’re not in a position to do anything about it? I mean, these guys constantly complain (rightfully) about the learned helplessness of some Democrats, yet here they are, acting helpless. It’s such bullshit.
What’s obvious is that folks like Greenwald and Stoller and others are choosing to not be outraged over the findings of the Mueller report. Because they don’t really care about what it says. Why they think this way, I can only guess.
I suspect it’s in large part due to derangement — they’ve grown to hate the Democratic establishment more than they hate Trump and the right.
Now, I have no love for the Democratic establishment and elites, I have repeatedly stated my contempt for the influence that big money has on the Democratic Party. But I’m not so blinded by contempt for the Democratic establishment that I can’t also be outraged at the Trump administration’s misdeeds. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about vendettas or resentment against a particular clique or side for me. I am genuinely perturbed by the rich and the powerful acting with impunity, and I frankly don’t care what their affiliation is.
And if nothing what the Mueller report reveals about Trump is that this is the classic case of a rich, powerful elite who thinks he can do what he wants, break the law, lie at will, and get away with it. You know, the sort of thing Greenwald and company claim to be against. Yet here they are MIA, instead choosing to take up the cause of holding cable news and Twitter personalities accountable instead of holding the most powerful man in the world accountable.
This is another inflection point in our modern political era, where we have a choice to make — are we to hold the powerful accountable or not? We faced this choice with the Bush Administration’s lies and potential crimes regarding Iraq, surveillance, and torture. Obama and Democrats of course passed on it and let them walk. We faced this choice with the financial crisis, with all of those bankers who broke our financial system and economy. Again, Obama and Democrats let them walk. Now we are faced with Trump’s potential crimes and his brazen lying as well as that of his minions, and we have an official report that no one has questioned the integrity of spelling that out for all to see.
Democratic leadership has signaled their intention, unsurprisingly, to let them walk. And Greenwald, et al., by choosing to be silent on the crimes of Trump and his people, are essentially choosing to let them walk as well (their feigned outrage over Democratic leadership’s refusal to impeach aside).
People all over the world and here in the US have lost faith in our institutions — our government, our economic systems, our justice system. They believe the wealthy and powerful have corrupted these institutions in their favor so that they avoid accountability while everyone else has to play by the rules. This loss of faith is why so many around the world are turning to authoritarians and populists — Brazil, the Philippines, Europe, Mexico. And yes, here in the US, in the form of Donald Trump.
I do not need to spell out for you what a threat this is to liberal democracy here and around the world. Authoritarianism relies on cynicism from the populace. It feeds on their lack of respect for and faith in government, in ruling elites, in the economy, in the justice system. If you don’t want to take my word, read Plato’s Republic in which he lays out the conditions for tyranny to thrive. It’s almost as if Plato some 2,400 years ago was able to predict the conditions we find ourselves in today.
This is why I think it is absolutely crucial that we not let the current rich elites in power avoid accountability. The preservation of liberal democracy depends on that accountability. If Trump gets away with this, it’ll further add to the cynicism so prevalent in our world.
And that’s why I’m so deeply disillusioned and furious at people like Glenn Greenwald and others on the left of the left who’ve been so ho-hum about the Mueller Report’s findings. They’ve exposed themselves to be a bunch of phonies in the end, motivated less by principle than by nurturing resentments against the Democratic establishment. It’s selfish, petulant, childish, and unserious behavior. Frankly, they are now part of the problem.